


Of Roses and Cigarettes

by SDTS



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 00:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9692237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SDTS/pseuds/SDTS
Summary: A chance encounter allows you one final meeting with your ex-lover.





	

                He is here, slinking around like a cat; thinking that no one has noticed him.

                But you have.

                How could you not?

                After everything that you have gone through with him, you still know his scent: cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes and his cheap aftershave. At one point, you had found it endearing. Now, it brings back a swirl of memories.

                Do you seek him out? To what end? The two of you have disintegrated – there is nothing left to be collected. You find yourself scanning the room for the confirmation of what you already know: your ex, Sam Drake, is here.

                In hindsight, you shouldn’t be surprised. This is an auction, after all, and there is probably an item to lift or some sort of information to recover. That has always been the problem with Sam…and one of the things that had made you fall in love with him. You hover by the balcony. He is probably out here, smoking. Waiting for whatever it is that he has come to collect.

                The crowd has thickened. The auction will be starting soon. You are here on a date; here because you have moved on. It had been time to move on. You had been rooted in memories. They had been growing around your ankles and pulling you down until you couldn’t breathe. Perhaps this is your final test to put everything away. Put it safely in a treasure chest and kick it to the bottom of the ocean.

                You glance over your shoulder. Your date is lost in conversation with a possible client. They are different from Sam – firmly on the ground, level headed with a plan for the future laid out neatly in front of you, displayed like a glittering jewel of possibilities. Their days of adventuring and taking risks were behind them with only a few scars as evidence of their past.

                Seeing that they are engaged, you step out onto the balcony. The air is crisp. The music spills out across the outside space. You can smell the roses growing off to the side mingled with the cigarette smoke as people chat quietly and sip their wine. You look for him instinctively – an old reflex that might never die. You will always be searching rooms for Sam – as if he will come back to you the way you had originally envisioned.

                You spot him at the corner of the balcony. His back is to you but you recognize his worried stance: the way his shoulders are hunched and his back appears stiff. Whatever he is planning, it is weighing heavily on him. Yet you go over to him anyway. If you cannot receive piece of mind, then neither shall he.

                “Sam?” You say quietly.

                He flinches as if he has been struck. For a couple of seconds, he doesn’t move. Then he turns around to face you. There is a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Still the same cheap aftershave. Sam looks tired. There are dark circles underneath his eyes that weren’t there when you last saw him six months ago.

                “Well,” He replies dryly, “Look who it is.”

                “Should have known that you would be here.” You go, moving to stand next to him to overlook the ocean below the mansion.

                “Yeah? Why’s that?” Sam takes a drag off his cigarette.

                The tip of the smoke glows orange, bringing back a torrent of memories: Sam smoking after sex, the smoke curling and twisting up to the ceiling - his head thrown back in laughter at some joke you had made, the sunlight draping across the room in wide slants. You force yourself to look away from the cigarette.

                “Seems like your scene.”

                “Used to be yours too,” He is close to touching you, hovering, knowing that touching you will cause the conversation to end, “Well, maybe it still is if you’re here.”

                “My date has business to discuss tonight.” You let the words drop, implode, scatter at his feet as if you shattered a teacup.

                Sam’s face goes still. He puts the cigarette back in his mouth and takes a longer drag off it. You keep your eyes fixed ahead. Better this way.

                “Yeah? How is that going?” His tone is forced – casual – sweeping the shattered teacup off the balcony and into the ocean below.

                “Good.”

                “Great. You’ll have to point them out. Can’t wait to see the person that represents the perfection you craved.”

                “Don’t.” You warn.

                Sam lowers his voice and turns his face to look at you, “Don’t what?”

                “Do this. Act high and mighty because I left and moved on.”

                Sam stubs the cigarette out on the balcony and flicks it off. You watch it drop into the darkness, spiral into the sea – leave you behind. There had been a time where you had liked watching Sam smoke. You didn’t mind that it had made your clothes smell or that you had been breathing it in. That had been worth it. You enjoyed the way Sam held the cigarette. The way that his lips pursed to take a drag. The smoke clouding his face. The way his throat would be hoarse after chain smoking. There was something about Sam smoking that fit him so perfectly. Hardly anyone smoked in this day and age yet Sam clung to it like he clung to his relics; another self-destructive behavior that he kept close to his heart.

                “Is that why you came over here then? To inform me that you’ve moved on? Should I offer my congratulations?” There is a bitterness creeping in his tone.

                “No. I just came over to say good-bye.”

                The words bring him up short. When you had left him – left him because it had been impossible to be with someone who was trying to catch up on thirteen years behind bars – the fight had been so brutal that neither one of you had truly wrapped the relationship up. The scars ran deep and remained that way. Unfinished words had been left behind to grow in your heart and take a form that threatened to break free of your chest and break your ribs in the process.

                “You can still come back.” Sam changes gears at the mention of closure – one final plea for you to come back.

                But you shake your head, “You know I can’t.”

                He leans towards you. The fabric of his shirt brushes against your arm. Sam had been everything you had wanted the three years that you had been together: dangerous, older, captivating, thrilling and kind at the same time. But you wanted to settle down. You wanted marriage, a child, a place to call home – and Sam chafed at the idea. The more you mentioned it, the more he wiggled away from you until. There was no stopping Sam. He was like the wind. He was going to find that missing time in every adventure and every relic. He would collect them and hold them close; spend hours putting them together in order to find the one thing he could never retrieve: missing time.

                Sam knows you can’t come back. The life that he lives holds no more interest for you. It isn’t what you need now. But it is what Sam needs and he won’t give that away. Nor can you ask him to cage himself for you. He has been caged before. You refuse to be the one to do that to him again.

                “I miss you.” He whispers and the words are dangerous – they cause the ground to shift beneath your feet and throw your world off axis.

                Your grip tightens on the balcony railing and you shake your head, “That doesn’t matter anymore, Sam. Maybe it would have mattered once…but not now.”

                He looks like he is going to touch your hand but something stops him. The gap between you widens, sending you adrift. Lost at sea; lost in the past. Your orbit is shifting. What could Sam say that would fix anything? That could replace the broken memories? There is nothing. There is nothing but the finality of this meeting and the first step forward into the new future.

                You take a step back from the balcony and finally look at him. Sam, who you will always love – Sam, who was yours once upon a time – Sam, who ultimately treasures freedom more than anything else – is no longer yours. Perhaps he never was yours. For a brief moment, the two of you were united. A single unit moving together perfectly in sync.

                You want to touch him but your will shall crumble. No, you cannot touch Sam.

                “Good-bye, Sam.” You tell him.

                Sam looks as if he has been mortally wounded. There is an aching feeling in your chest – it blossoms across your body, painful and sweet. A ship leaving the dock. A storm ending. Mending a broken arm that wasn’t set properly.

                “Good-bye.” Is all he says in return – no pet name, no pleading – just the truth that he must face.

                He is already pulling a fresh cigarette out. You linger for one final impossible moment to watch him light it. His thumb flicks against the lighter once, twice, three times before it lights. The sudden flame casts a light across his face before the cigarette glows. Then the flame dies and there are only shadows crossing his face.

                You turn away then. You cannot bear it any longer. There is nothing more to say. There is only the good-bye.

                You cross the balcony, leaving Sam behind for good – forever hazy in that scent of roses and cigarettes; a hazy image of what could and should have been.


End file.
